Minnesota is very geographically diverse. We have prairies, plains, grain fields, peat lands, plateaus, oak savannahs, large stands of conifers, river bottoms, vast wetlands and numerous areas where these habitats overlap one another. Add to the mix the urban core around the Twin Cities, and you have a wide variety of deer hunting opportunities.

"It's amazing to think about all that diverse habitat and the fact that 80 percent of the state has deer all over the place," said Mark Johnson, executive director of the Minnesota Deer Hunters Association. "You might have some places where there are 30 deer per acre, and yet parts of The Arrowhead or far southwest might only have two to five deer per acre."

Point being, Minnesota is full of white-tailed deer, and hunters would be missing out on some great opportunities if they stayed home this November.

"The deer herd is looking pretty good, and 2006 will be a good year," said Lou Cornicelli, Big-Game Program coordinator for the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources.

The record kill of 290,000 deer set in 2003 will be difficult to beat simply because there are fewer hunters going afield with every season. The total harvest in 2005 was 255,736, of which 214,957 were taken by firearms hunters -- a full 84 percent of the overall harvest. That was down from 2004, but it was still the third-highest deer kill in Minnesota. Yet, Cornicelli remained optimistic.

"I wouldn't be surprised if we don't have upward of 250,000 again," he commented.

One of the reasons the kill went down last year is because the number of licenses sold to firearms hunters dropped from 634,634 to 626,211. The record number of licenses sold came in 2003 -- our record deer harvest season -- with almost 649,000 purchased that year.

Perhaps the best news when it comes to the number of licenses sold is because in 1995, only 1,835 youth licenses were sold, while in 2005 that number skyrocketed to 50,501. Getting youngsters involved in deer hunting will ensure its future.

Some hunters say that they haven't bought a license in recent years because the herd size is decreasing and it's tougher to kill a deer. The numbers show some merit to that claim, with a 34.3 percent success rate in 2005 compared with rates in the 40s during the early 1990s. The good news is that the success rate for bowhunters has jumped up in that same period, and muzzleloaders today are more successful than they were in 2000.

"Everybody was all crazy last year because they thought there weren't as many deer as the DNR said there were, but that was merely their perspective from their hunt," Johnson said.

He believes the DNR's numbers, and said the perception was different because the 2005 hunt was warmer than usual, thus promoting deer movement at night or near water.

"The deer move to where it's cool when they have their winter coats on, and so they relaxed and cooled down during the day, choosing to move at night or in the evening," Johnson said.

In late May and early June of this year, the DNR conducted an online survey for hunters to weigh in on their thoughts about deer populations in northeast and north-central Minnesota. The online survey required hunters to view a presentation about the area before they could weigh in with their opinions. The results of the survey will be combined with other public input and a decision on deer populations will be made for each permit area.